Palworld developer reports Nintendo's suing over 3 Pokémon patents for only $66,000 in damages, but a videogame IP lawyer says fighting the lawsuit could mean 'burning millions of dollars'

pcgamer.com:

Today, Palworld developer Pocketpair published a report detailing the terms of the intellectual property lawsuit Nintendo filed against the studio in September. When Nintendo announced its lawsuit, it alleged that Palworld «infringes multiple patent rights» but didn't specify which patents were being claimed, leaving us to speculate about whether Nintendo was bringing its legal cannons to bear over third-person Poké Ball throwing.

Thanks to Pocketpair's report, we finally have confirmation about the patents forming the basis for Nintendo's infringement allegations. Nintendo's lawsuit claims that Palworld infringes on three Japanese patents: 7545191, 7493117, and 7528390, a trio granting Nintendo protections on creature catching and riding mechanics.

Pocketpair's report details the application and registration dates of the patents in question—all three of which were filed by and granted to Nintendo in the months following Palworld's release in January 2024. However, each filing asserted in the lawsuit is a continuation of a series of patents Nintendo had originally filed in 2021 during the development of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

As IP attorney Kirk Sigmon explained in an interview with PC Gamer in September, patent continuations—called «divisional patents» in Japanese legal practice—allow a patent holder to specify additional claims as an extension of the original patent. «As you go through this process and file divisionals, continuations, whatever, you are drafting claims that are more and more tailored towards assertion,» Sigmon said. «You know more about what you can get and what you can't, and what you can also do is—if you know who you're going to go sue—you can draft claims to target them.»

Nintendo had also filed divisional patents after Pocketpair had started releasing Palworld gameplay footage, suggesting that Nintendo might have begun sculpting additional patent filings well in advance of its eventual lawsuit.

«If they were aware of Palworld, or if they